Page 70 of The Honeymoon Hack

Stay calm, Brie.

I tapped my new card on the scanner at the checkpoint between the common area and the data center. It glowed green.

Just like normal.

“Try to keep that one intact,” the guard said as I passed through.

I nodded to him, reminding my legs not to break into a run.

Don’t look guilty. Don’t give anyone a reason to look closer.

My phone and watch went through the X-ray. I went through the full-body scanner. When I turned the corner after security, my smile finally broke free. I wanted to punch my fist into the air and cheer. Wanted to dance. Wanted to call Will and tell him everything.

But there were cameras everywhere. So I stuck with smiling.

Chapter 27

Will

“Don’t takeyour eye off that panel,” Ronnie instructed, his voice muffled as he faced the back wall of the maintenance access bay. “I need to check the backup power connections without stressing those terminals.”

I stared at the small, black-and-white screen, its tiny bars indicating power loads. As long as the six bars remained roughly even, the section being monitored would remain steady.

Everyone on the tech crew who wasn’t doing high-priority changes had been running hurricane protocols all shift—mostly verifying that already well-maintained systems were still solid. For Ronnie, this was an opportunity to review everything a third or fourth time.

“Didn’t we check these systems yesterday?” I asked as he flipped a few switches. The indicators I was monitoring didn’t budge. I reported, “No change.”

“Hurricane prep’s not just about the hurricane.” Ronnie’s eyes never left his work. “We’re already isolated, so if we need replacement parts we don’t already have onsite, it can take a few days. Add potential damage up top to the landing strip, and those days easily become weeks.”

My gaze drifted over the array of cables snaking through the revealed cavity. A rainbow of color-coded wires, neatly bundled and labeled.Wait a second.These panels served as access points for all essential components—power, cooling, network, and security.

I’d been asking Ronnie a steady stream of questions since our pre-rotation shift on Tuesday. The barrage allowed me to disguise mission-relevant questions among valid new-employee curiosity. “Have you ever had a total power loss?”

Ronnie snorted. “Thirty days of generator capacity, with a week’s worth of emergency backup fuel onsite. Plus backups to the backups. And batteries for critical systems.” He tapped a black junction box inside the panel. “Even the cameras have backup power.”

“Seems like overkill.”

“You arenotserious.” Ronnie turned around, pointed at the terminal I’d taken my eyes off of, and retrieved a voltage tester from his toolbox. “Our clients deserve continuous service, no exceptions.”

“I meant the cameras.” I peeked at the bars on the display, then shifted focus to the wiring configuration. “They run on the same circuits as everything else?”

Ronnie gave me a curious look before turning back to the switches, touching probes to various connections. “Separate system. Blue wires. Each row has its own circuit.”

My pulse quickened. I could potentially disable the cameras in a specific row without affecting the entire grid. “What happens if you need to work on any of those circuits?”

Instead of answering immediately, Ronnie leaned back and flipped open a small black box below the panel he had me watching. Inside, a keypad. He punched in a six-digit code, then selected a camera shut-down option from the menu on the small screen, which flashed: “Maintenance mode activated.”

On the second line, a countdown from twenty minutes began.

“Standard procedure when we disrupt any system,” Ronnie said as he returned to the back wall of the maintenance bay. “Can’t have security rushing down here every time we’re upgrading things.”

“That’s convenient,” I said, watching him work. “The system logs it as scheduled maintenance?”

“Exactly. If we need more time, we re-auth before the window expires.” He waved for me to hand over the maintenance manual, which was on top of the cart we were working from. He flipped to a diagram showing all the wires in this panel.

You need to study that diagram, Will.

“Let me check the last connection,” Ronnie said.